Job Description
Job Title:
Head of Customer and Business Solutions
Grade:
HMG1
Appraised by: AD Business Services
Responsible for:
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ICT project team
Business solutions analysts and architects
Purpose of job:
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To be the responsible officer for the delivery of ICT solutions and programmes
across the Council, leading programmes across a multi agency environment
including working with supply partners and external partnerships.
To manage a team of internal staff and external project managers as well as
work across the Council engaging project managers working on various
Business programmes.
To be the Head of Profession for Project and Programme Management ICT,
defining the professional standards of all project managers ICT and driving
adherence to these standards.
To be responsible for the management of the Council’s ICT architecture and
solutions design ensuring all solutions meet the ICT strategy and deliver on
the business needs.
Duties and responsibilities:
Corporate
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To work flexibly across service areas and with partners to achieve the
objectives of the Council.
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To support organisational change ensuring the appropriate systems of
performance and development, communications, equality impact assessment,
monitoring and review are in place.
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To work as part of multi-disciplinary project teams to enable the breaking
down of divisional and departmental barriers and to encourage the concept of
both internal and external partnership working
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To promote a philosophy of putting customer needs first at every opportunity
and to put in place management arrangements to action this.
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To work with key stakeholders, local residents and the voluntary sector in
improving service delivery and promoting creative and innovative ways of
tackling local problems ensuring services are developed which meet the
needs of our ethnically diverse community and are accessible to all users.
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To oppose and where possible eradicate all forms of discrimination, making a
positive contribution to managing diversity, both as an employer and service
provider.
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To raise performance in Hounslow by contributing to a culture of continuous
improvement and efficiency.
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To promote a positive image of Hounslow and represent the Council at
external conferences, seminars and working parties as may be required.
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To provide professional advice to Councillors and other officers on relevant
areas of service delivery, ensuring compliance with the Council’s standing
orders.
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To participate in the Council’s emergency planning and responses to
emergency situations when required to do so.
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To assist in the conduct of elections when required to do so.
Functional:
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Lead programmes on a day-to-day basis on behalf of the Director, ensuring
any “significant” risks, issues, actions arising from the programme, across any
of the work streams, are highlighted to the Director.
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Lead the definition of the professional standards for ICT project management
across the council, including project management processes and approaches.
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Develop and implement a Project and Programme Management development
curriculum and drive a Continuous Professional development culture among
staff as career project managers. This will include increasing skill level
through recruitment and use of external project management staff.
2/5
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Ensure the council has a robust ICT architecture which maps to its ICT
strategy and that business solutions map to the architecture and strategy.
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Ensure that ICT projects across the Council are run and managed in a
controlled manner and that value for money is derived from all project activity.
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Lead the Monitoring of the benefits within each project.
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Support the Director in delivering his objectives, through the guidance and
support of ICT work stream leads and project managers, supporting the
achievement of their work stream plans and resolving cross-work stream
dependencies and issues.
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Lead the I dentification of the needs and concerns of all stakeholders, via
day to day programme management activities and where necessary, make
recommendations to the Director on any actions required.
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Lead the implementation of processes to ensure that issues and risks are
identified, managed and resolved, including any contingency plans and
options to resolve.
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Ensure that all programmes produce the required products/deliverables, to
the required standard of quality and within the constraints of time and cost.
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Chair Programme Management meetings and any delivery forum that
requires programme guidance.
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Chair a project managers/coordinators meeting to ensure the coordination of
all planning/migration activities.
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Manage the generic project managers and programme support officers
through the use of the Council’s performance management, sickness,
attendance and disciplinary codes.
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Manage the programme support officers to ensure all monitoring, tracking,
capturing, reporting processes are in place and effective.
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Acts as an escalation point for all supply/demand work streams and
stakeholder groups.
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Implement mechanisms to co-ordinate the activities of work streams and
projects within the remit of the function.
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Ensure all required inputs are available to enable reporting on overall
progress, issues, risks, changes and actions.
3/5
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Lead the production of programme and work stream plans and, if necessary,
exception plans utilising the project office, project coordinators and nominated
work stream members.
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Support the Director in tracking and monitoring the overall progress and use
of resources and initiate corrective action where necessary.
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Ensures there is consistency in the role carried out by the project managers
and that the key activities they carry out within each work stream aligns with
the expected programme responsibilities for this role.
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Continually monitors the skills and resources required by the programme and
those available to it and highlights any gaps to the Director with proposed
solutions to address.
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Provide leadership to the project managers to ensure all issues are
addressed and that any potential barriers to a successful migration to
customer services are identified, resolved or escalated when necessary.
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Ensure any significant BAU projects are captured during the planning
exercise and monitored going forward for any potential conflict or risk on the
work stream’s deliverables or the wider programme.
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Where applicable ensure the correct charging procedures are in place for
projects and that the income is recovered.
Any other broadly analogous duties which may be allocated from time to time.
Council Standards
Equal Opportunities: The Council has a strong commitment to achieving equality
of opportunity and expects all employees to implement and promote its policy in
their own work.
Health and Safety: The Council is committed to a healthy and safe working
environment and expects all its employees to implement and promote its policy in
all aspects of their work.
Confidentiality: The Council is committed to maintaining privacy of all it’s staff and
customers. It expects all staff to handle all individuals’ personal information in a
sensitive and professional manner. All staff are under an obligation not to gain
access or attempt to gain access to information they are not authorised to have.
4/5
Signatures – line manager and post holder:
Signed…………………………………………. Dated…………………………….
Line manager
Signed…………………………………………. Dated…………………………….
Post holder
The duties of this post will change and develop over time. It is the post holder’s
responsibility, in conjunction with their line manager, regularly to review this
document and amend it when necessary.
5/5